Bomani Jones, a former ESPN TV and radio host continues to fall as his switch from ESPN to HBO shows. Nobody watches Jones, nobody listens to the radical leftist, and his terrible ratings bear that out. No matter what network he’s on or what time slot he’s in, Jones is a bona fide audience killer.
Jones made his HBO debut Sunday, the ratings are in now and it was a disaster. His weekly program. Game Theory and Bomani Jones, attracted a pitiful 153,000 viewers. The goal was to retain the attention of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, which had 664,000 viewers, HBO slotted Jones’ program right after Oliver’s.
That strategy failed right out of the starting gate with Jones, who lost 511,000 of the Oliver viewers – 77 percent!
Outkick blogger Bobby Burack’s observation was the ultimate insult to Jones. “It’s almost impressive to lose that many of your lead-in’s viewers and then add virtually none of your own. HBO could have drawn a higher total by airing infomercials or going dark,” Burack commented.
Jones only aired for 30 minutes. HBO viewers gave up on him after Oliver. Burack called Jones “essentially a viewership kryptonite.”
Bomani has suffered a slowdown for some time. His radio show on ESPN is his. Bomani Anderson at The Right Moment was cancelled in 2017 after losing 90 affiliates and recording the lowest ratings in ESPN Radio history.
Jones received a 2 million dollar contract from ESPN to join a new television show featuring Pablo Torre. High Noon. That program followed the highly watched Stephen A. Smith and still lost 50 percent of Smith’s audience. ESPN made a move High Noon to a different time slot with the same old results. This experiment also failed.
Frequently failing to rank among cable TV’s top-rated 150 programs, High Noon In 2020, Jones was left in the dust. Jones blamed the failure on Torre, saying, “We did not have chemistry between me and Pablo.” Burack reported that quote was pitched to GQ by Jones’ agent.
What is the real reason behind “Wrong Time” Jones’ epic career of failure? Racism was a major factor in this. Last month, Jones appeared on the Dan Le Batard radio show with Stugotz. Le Batard asked Jones why NFL teams conduct supposedly token interviews with minority coaching candidates to satisfy league rules. Jones’ response?:
“I just don’t know why people try to make this far more complex than it is. What’s the problem? People of color.
“Who are the ones that are making these decisions? People of color. Who are the ones that won’t change their decision making? People of color. These matters are a threat to litigation. Who is the one that does everything differently? White people.”
Burack claims Jones’ defection would make it easier for Jones to be accused of racist behavior by white media executives. The white executives may have also been intimidated into keeping Jones after the Washington Post praised him as someone who “thrives where race and sports collide.”
Jones is, however, in denial over his inability attract an audience. He’s not the problem, he says, it’s the conservative news media. In an interview five days ago, he accused conservative news people of trying to fabricate controversy over his “stuff” and failing in those attempts.
If anyone knows failure, it’s “Wrong Time Jones,” who better up his HBO game before it becomes yet another of his many failures.
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